ark@rabbit.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (09/23/84)
I just bought a wonderful CD called An Evening with Windham Hill -- Live Perhaps someone can tell me some more about these people?
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (09/24/84)
Wyndham Hill is not a group, it is a record label. Their ads have a list of various musical genres (rock, jazz, folk, classical), each one crossed out, with the words Wyndham Hill (not crossed out) at the bottom of the list. Says something... I haven't heard much material yet from this label, but I've been told that the label seeks a rather diverse sound, with a fair dose of what gets called "ECM jazz" (you have to listen to ECM to know what I'm trying to describe). -- If it doesn't change your life, it's not worth doing. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
roger@cornell.UUCP (Roger Hoover) (09/25/84)
Windham Hill is indeed a record label, but often artists who record on the label tour together. This is what produced the Windham Hill Live recordings. I saw this years group (Lis Story, Michael Hedges, Darol Anger, and a number of others) in Minneapolis. It was well worth going to.
heneghan@ihuxa.UUCP (Joe Heneghan) (09/25/84)
Howdy, most of this kind of music comes from "impressionistic music". I suggest some of the samplers available. I also suggest George Winston music also out of Windham Hill.
darryl@ism780.UUCP (09/26/84)
I wish I knew a little more also. I have two WH selections, and I'd
recommend them both highly:
Sir John Alot of John Renborn
Ocean Bola Sete
I bought the former because I've enjoyed his other works which
range from solo guitar through British Isles folk, mixed with
some jazz (Pentangle, The John Renborn Group). The latter is
also solo guitar with an American flavor. The pressings are quite
excellent also!
--Darryl Richman
...!cca!ima!ism780!darryljim@noscvax.UUCP (James A. Zaun) (09/27/84)
William Ackerman has assembled a unique group of composer-musicians who spe- cialize for the most part in an almost meditative kind of ambient jazz, (with the possible exception of Shawdowfax). If you enjoy this kind of music, nearly all of the albums in the Windham Hill series should be to your liking. With few exceptions, most WH CDs are from analog masters. -jim@nosc <Jim Zaun>
sharpe@drivax.UUCP (Andrew Sharpe) (09/27/84)
One of the people who play on the Windham Hill label is Will Ackerman. He is a guitarist who plays in the style of Leo Kottke, but likes to unison overdub himself to give a bigger sound. The reason I know about this label is that about 5 years ago, when I was trying to break into the recording studio field, I met a guy by the name of Scott Saxon, who owned (owns?) Mantra Studios. This studio did the recording of Mr. Ackerman's first and second albums. Unfortunately, I lost contact with the studio over the years, so I don't know if Mantra is still recording for Windham Hill. -- Andrew Sharpe ihnp4!-------- \ mot! ---------- \ ucbvax!unisoft! > drivax!sharpe ucscc!--------- / amdahl!------- / "When you have eliminated all the impossibilities, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" -- Sherlock Holmes
cuccia@ucbvax.ARPA (Nick Cuccia) (10/01/84)
More on WH:
cuccia@ucbvax.ARPA (Nick Cuccia) (10/01/84)
Apologies for the null message. Here goes the serious stuff,
from an article from the Daily Californian (UC-Berkeley's unofficial
campus newspaper/propaganda/rag/birdcage liner/all of the above)
on 17 Aug 1984. This was in a semi-review of a recent "An Evening at
Windham Hill in Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco.
"Once upon a time," (William) Ackerman said, "we were regarded as
sort of the high-tech heir to the Tacoma tradidition." Tacoma
is the label that established the work of John Fahey and Robbie
Basho, steel-string guitar pioneers. "And then we did the
(Erik) Satie (album) and George Winston, and they said, 'Well,
that Satie defies us; we don't know what to make of that.
But George Winston must be folk piano because it's on Windham
Hill and Windham Hill is a folk label. . ." They were
content to say, 'Well, it's a solo label, you know.'
"Then we very carefully added duets, trios, quartets. If you
look at the development of the catalogue, the first trio was
on (Michael) Hedges and the first quartet was on (Scott)
Cossu and the first quintet was on De Grassi. But they were
still saying, 'Well, but it's an acoustic label, isn't it?'
And so then we brought in the electric instrumentation.
And they said, 'Well, it's a jazz label.'
Will Ackerman waxes sprightly here: "In order to counteract
that, I'm doing an album of Gregorian chant and I'm doing
some hammer dulcimer; and the Billy Oskay/Michael
O'Domhnaill album, Nightnoise, is Irish-derivative, and. . .
"We're talking about a synthesis of many forms of music,
rather than being any one single identifiable form."
This eclecticism and fluidity is refreshing. An additional
surprise at the Davies Hall concert was Michael Hedges'
song, "Face Yourself". Heretofore, Windham Hill has avoided
vocal work; Hedges will be the first artist to release an
album on the label with voice and guitar, rather in the old
folk manner.
Sure, it's not great writing, but it says what the label is all about,
which is basically what you make of it.
I have about half of what is on the Windham Hill label and its
associated/subsidiary labels (Hip Pocket, Lost Lake, and Dancing Cat
(George Winston's new label)). My personal recommendations are:
George Winston: Autumn, December
William Ackerman: Turtles' Navel, Passage,
Past Light (Visiting)
Liz Story: Solid Colors
Darol Anger/Barbara Higbie: Tideline
Bill Quist: Piano Solos of Erik Satie
Shadowfax: Shadowfax, Shadowdance
Mark Isham: Aerial Boundaries
Windham Hill records are distributed through A&M records, so there
should be few problems with availability.
My favorite thing about the albums (outside of the music) is the
quality control. Many of the albums are digital mastered on the
Sony PCM-2 system (please correct me if I'm mistaken); inside liners
are thick plastic (not paper), pressings are very high quality,
graphics are nice, the normal shrink & warp wrap is replaced with an
oversized, reusable plastic cover. The price is also reasonable
($10 list, about $8 at local (Berkeley) record stores). Included
in the record is also a pamphlet inviting you to join their mailing
list (cost: a stamp for postage).
Needless to say, I think that Will Ackerman and Co. are doing something
right.
Nick Cuccia
ucbvax!cuccia
cuccia%ucbmiro@Berkeleycuccia@ucbvax.ARPA (Nick Cuccia) (10/02/84)
Different Fur studios in Menlo Park does most of the recording for Windham Hill. I think that Shadowfax records in LA and Mark Isham recorded _Vapor Drawings_ in London (England), though. Yours for better musik, Nick Cuccia ucbvax!cuccia cuccia@Berkeley
ed@ism780.UUCP (10/05/84)
#R:rabbit:-317500:ism780:20500027:000:7182 ism780!ed Oct 4 13:13:00 1984 More on Windham Hill: Excerpted from June '84 issue of Sound Canada: Windham Hill's Unlikely Climb "From a humble birth in California in 1976, Windham Hill Records has grown to invade Canada - and the rest of the world - with its audiophile brand of mellow instrumental discs" California guitarist Will Ackerman first met George Winston by mail, and didn't quite know what to make of him. After Ackerman had started up his own small record label, he got a letter from Winston asking him if he'd consider releasing 'Ocean', and out-of-print album by Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete. After a year or so of this sort of correspondence, Ackerman made up his mind about Winston. "I really regarded him as an eccentric academician". Then they met in person. And Ackerman, while staying overnight at Winston's L.A. home, discovered that his penpal was as incredible slide guitarist. And, my God, a piano genius. Today, George Winston is the star of Will Ackerman Windham Hill Records, one of the greatest - and most unlikely - success stories in the independent recording industry in the last decade. Started up when Ackerman knew nothing about recording and producing, and employing many artists he either just stumbled upon or knew through friends and relatives, Windham Hill is now critically acclaimed as "the American ECM". Since Ackerman formed the Palo Alto, Cal. label in 1976, he's assemble a stable of offbeat instrumental artists (mostly acoustic); recorded them in unorthodox ways; and presented their work in excellent audiophile pressings in jackets bearing clean graphics and mellow-California/back-to-nature titles: 'Willow', 'Tideline', 'Autumn', and so on. After great success in the U.S., including two gold albums for George Winston on solo piano, Windham Hill's quirky brand of mellow music is now available on domestic release in Canada, via a world-wide distribution deal with A&M Records. After the first three months here, sales of the first dozen or so titles available had totalled about 25,000 - 25% higher than expected - and continue to sell relatively well, with more titles on the way. The secret of Windham Hill's appeal is hard to describe in any conventional music biz terms. "If I hear the stuff and I find it really moving, I'll have it on Windham Hill", says 34-year old label president Ackerman. "None of the normal criteria - that we've got to go with the flow of pop music - exist here". George Winston is the perfect example. His melodic, expressionistic piano compositions - which he calls "soundtracks of life" - are a bit too structured to be called jazz, and a bit too loose to be called pop. But he definitely has commercial appeal, splintered perhaps, between several markets. Classical fans are bound to to be impressed by his compositional strengths, jazz fans can enjoy the complexity and subtlety of his improvisations, and MOR pop fans will be suckers for his simple melodic hooks. Like Winston, most other Windham Hill artists play quiet, soothing music on acoustic instruments, including piano, violin, guitar and oboe. Though some of it tends towards aimless noodling, or Music to Read By, a good majority of the titles released so far in Canada contain some exciting and fresh sounds. Highlights include: the offbeat instrumental mix of Shadowfax on its debut instrumental album; the dazzling chemistry of pianist Barbara Higbie and violinist Darol Anger on Tideline; and the hypnotic acoustic guitar work of Michael Hedges on 'An Evening with Windham Hill Live', and exquisitely-recorded sampler of several label artists. Whether Windham Hill has come up with a whole new genre of music is debatable, but the company certainly has been a pioneer in the recording studio. Listen to an acoustic guitar on Windham Hill and you can almost feel the delicate scrapings of calloused fingers across crisp steel strings; on piano recordings, you can sense the pounding of hammers on strings. "The Windham Hill 'sound' is a response to the whole elaborate multi-tracking of the recording industry", says Ackerman. "It's a pure, intimate, proximate music." It's no surprise that Ackerman is a recording studio maverick, considering his start in the business. Back in the mid-70's, after studying English and History at Stanford University, he started up his own building company. While doing some construction work for Chris Strachwitz, head of Arhoolie and Kicking Mule record companies, he simply hung around and asked a lot of questions, and picked up the basics of record production. After releasing his own first solo guitar album with funding help from several supportive friends and fans, he started up Windham Hill, and started to produce other artists - learning by doing. It was Ackerman's first recording engineer, Scott Saxon, who first showed him the recording technique that has become standard on Windham Hill guitar albums. Saxon took a couple of AKG mikes and crammed them right up next to the hole of Ackerman's guitar. The resulting recording didn't capture "concert" sound, but certainly was refreshingly intimate - complete with all the noisy squeaks and squawks of fingertips sliding along brand-new strings. "I really feel those (noises) are part of the performance", says Ackerman. "They add a proximity to the artist, and that's been very appealing to a lot of people." On piano recordings, Ackerman similarly places his main microphones unusually close to the keyboard and inside hammers - about 8 inches away. "You get overtones and resonances that are unprecedented", he says. "They also give you a tremendous amount of stereo seperation." Ackerman will also usually place several "ambient" mikes in various positions around the studio to help create a partial illusion to a live setting. "In listening to George Winston, you are sitting in front of a large, open stage, right in the front row", he says. "With pianist Liz Story, you're in a 300-seat room in about the 20th row." When it comes to pressings, Windham Hill has a longtime reputation for excellence in the U.S. that should continue in Canada, as all titles are being pressed at Toronto's Cineram Records on super-quiet KC-600 audiophile vinyl. This special formulation (it has no carbon black added and hence it is a translucent purple colour) should be familiar to pop fans who've bought recent albums by Supertramp, The Police and Joe Jackson. As for the future, says Ackerman, Windham Hill is continuing to sign new artists, to re-release old classics on a subsidiary label, and to continue its use of digital recording, and the release of titles on compact discs. To plug all of his various wares, Ackerman is using a rather unorthodox print advertisement that simply lists several categories of music - Jazz, Folk, Classical and Rock - each with a large slash drawn through it. "That's the most positive statement we could come up with", says Ackerman. "We didn't set out to create a new genre of music, but when you consider that all our major retail accounts have established their own "Windham Hill" bins, it seems that we have come up with something unique. Ed Lycklama decvax!cca!ima!ed
heneghan@ihuxa.UUCP (Joe Heneghan) (10/05/84)
Nick, thanks for a super response! This music is second to none!
cuccia@ucbvax.ARPA (Nick Cuccia) (10/17/84)
Went to one of the local record stores (Rasputin's on Telegraph, for you BA readers...) to look for a copy of Darol Anger/Barbara Higbie's _Tideline_. Found it, all right... in a JAPANESE Pressing! Actually, it was pretty much the same packaging that they've been using in this country for years. Other Windham Hill releases in Japanese versions include all of George Winston's albuums, Liz Story's album, and a few of William Ackerman's albums. --From the biirthplace of FSM (1964-1984), --Nick Cuccia --ucbvax!cuccia